Crowds of people were evacuated out of the Humboldt County Superior Courthouse into the Wednesday afternoon rain after a broken pipe on the second story sent water cascading down hallways and staircases. County officials said they hope to know by today when the building might reopen.

The cause of the courthouse flood appears to have been a broken valve on a pipe leading to a toilet in a second-story women’s restroom, Eureka Fire Department Capt. II Ed Laidlaw said. A maintenance worker was attempting to replace a valve in the restroom when, at around 12:30 p.m., Laidlaw said the worker heard the valve fail and looked to see water spraying out through a pipe.

As maintenance workers searched for a valve to shut off water to the restroom, the roughly one-half inch pipe continued to spray water for around 20 minutes, before an employee shut off the water main, Laidlaw said.

In that time, enough water had spilled onto the second story floor to permeate the two floors below, effectively shutting down nearly all courthouse operations for the day.

On the first story and ground floor, water seeped out through light fixtures and electrical sockets, down elevator shafts and through soggy ceiling tiles, which began to fall to the ground as they became water logged.

Emergency workers, courthouse personnel and corrections inmates were recruited to clear standing water down stairwells and out of the building in an effort to reduce damages.

Orange jail jumpsuits were piled to sop up water off a Sheriff’s Office electrical room floor, while employees in the court records department hurried to protect computers and paper files with plastic bags, until they were told to evacuate. A sign on the door read: “Due to flood, the court is closed.”

”There was water everywhere,” Deputy Court Clerk Kristy Silva said.

Wednesday afternoons are typically a busy time in the court, as it is the last day people arrested over the weekend can be arraigned within the 72-hour period mandated by California law. Assistant District Attorney Wes Keat said that a statute in California law treats emergency courthouse closures the same way as holidays.

A Superior Court judge ordered arraignments to take place inside a classroom in the jail, said Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Brenda Godsey. Those were closed to the public and a Times-Standard request to attend the arraignment of two men accused of murdering Eureka resident Andrew Pease during a robbery spree on Friday was denied.

While the Humboldt County jail is abutted to the courthouse, Godsey said it is a separate building and would not be impacted by the flood.

Today, the courthouse was scheduled for closure in observation of Lincoln’s Birthday, but it is not clear when the courthouse will reopen.

Humboldt County Administrative Officer Loretta Nickolaus said courthouse staff would need to continue to clean up and assess damages before they would know if the courthouse would be open Friday.

On Wednesday afternoon, Laidlaw said a county contractor was on his way to the courthouse to evaluate the damages and assess what kind of effort would be needed for cleanup. By 5 p.m., Nickolaus said cleanup crews had set up heaters and fans and experts were being called to look at the elevators. She said there was no plan to hold a special meeting of the county Board of Supervisors.